APEC, free trade and the WTO
By Humberto Campodónico
The implementation of bilateral free trade agreements, the FTAs, began 25 years ago, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the United States. The European Union, which was initially reluctant to sign bilateral FTAs, also adopted them. In our region, Chile was the first South American country to sign an FTA with the US. Then came Peru and Colombia. (more…)
South Centre Presentation to the Special Event of the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly
UNCTAD organized a special event of the Second Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on 26 October 2016 in New York on “SOVEREIGN DEBT RESTRUCTURINGS: Lessons learned from legislative steps taken by certain countries and other appropriate action to reduce the vulnerability of sovereigns to holdout creditors”. Ms. Yuefen Li, Special Advisor on Economics and Development Finance of the South Centre, spoke as a panelist and alerted the UN Member States of the current legislative challenges facing the sovereigns when it comes to the need for sovereign debt restructuring including the impact of the plurilateral and bilateral trade and investment agreements.
Peruvian State’s Strategy for Addressing Investor State Disputes
This policy brief explains the approach adopted by Peru to establishment of the “System for the Coordination and Response of the State in International Investment Disputes” (SICRECI) and the role it played in responding to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases faced by Peru. It gives an overview of the sixteen ISDS cases brought against Peru to date. While this institutional development adds value in terms of managing cases as they arise, the paper points out that this system faces major hurdles due to multiple challenges arising from ISDS. As shown in the paper, after the establishment of SICRECI, Peru continued to face a rising number of ISDS cases. (more…)
Innovation and the Global Expansion of Intellectual Property Rights: Unfulfilled Promises
The incorporation of intellectual property into trade agreements has not proven to bring about the promised benefits. The premises that have underpinned the global strengthening and expansion of intellectual property through such agreements – namely that the same standards of protection are suitable for countries with different levels of development and that innovation will be boosted – do not match the reality. (more…)
Approaches to International Investment Protection: Divergent Approaches between the TPPA and Developing Countries’ Model Investment Treaties
While the international investment treaty regime is at a conjuncture, States face the challenge of designing reforms that would result in systemic solutions, and not merely cosmetic changes, to the challenges emerging out of the existing regime and the ISDS mechanism it embodies. (more…)
Title of Book: Investment Treaties: Views and Experiences from Developing Countries
Title of Event: REFORM OF THE INVESTMENT PROTECTION REGIME
VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Date: Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 13:30-15:00
Venue: Library Events Room (B-135), Palais des Nations, Geneva
Organizer: South Centre and UNOG Library
“Free trade” in trouble in the United States
By Martin Khor
As free trade reaches a crossroads in the US, developing countries have to rethink their own trade realities for their own development interests. “Free trade” seems to be in deep trouble in the United States, with serious implications for the rest of the world. Opposition to free trade or trade agreements emerged as a big theme among the leading American presidential candidates. (more…)
Intellectual Property in the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Increasing the Barriers for the Access to Affordable Medicines
Most free trade agreements signed by the United States, the European Union and the members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in the last 15 years contain chapters on intellectual property rights with provisions applicable to pharmaceuticals. Such provisions considerably expand the rights recognized to pharmaceutical companies under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) established in the context of the World Trade Organization. (more…)
Ecuador’s Experience with International Investment Arbitration
The brief reviews Ecuador’s experience with investment treaties and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The paper explains the historical and geopolitical context of the decisions Ecuador has taken in regard to bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and ISDS. The author notes that a number of treaties did not fulfill the constitutional and legal ratification processes. (more…)
Financing for Development Conference 2015: A View from the South
On 19 July 2014 the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations agreed on a draft of a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, taking the first steps toward a renewed development agenda for after 2015. The effort to agree on the SDGs was the follow up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), whose end-date is 2015. Aside from the 17 specific goals, the draft SDGs included 169 associated targets. (more…)
Indonesia’s Perspective on Review of International Investment Agreements
The South Centre releases a new policy brief series focusing on international investment agreements and experiences of developing countries.
As part of this series, the publication of Investment Policy Brief No. 1 entitled by Mr. Abdulkadir Jailani briefly describes Indonesia’s experience with at least six investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases. It also explains Indonesia’s decision to discontinue its existing international investment agreements (IIAs); to date, 17 out of 64 IIAs have been discontinued by Indonesia. The paper explains the rationale for this important policy measure. (more…)
When Foreign Investors Sue the State
By Martin Khor
The investor-state dispute system, whereby foreign investors can sue the government in an international tribunal, is one of the issues being negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and other free trade agreements.
(more…)
